Mount Everest, Earth's Tallest Mountain, Just Got Taller By About a Meter 44
China and Nepal say they have determined the "most accurate height of Everest that we have ever had," calculating it to be about 8,848.86 meters (29,031.7 feet) high. That's almost a meter taller than the mountain's previous recognized height. CNET reports: The two countries, which border each other at the mountain's summit, shared the news in a joint virtual briefing Tuesday that was streamed live online. Nepal began remeasuring the mountain in 2017, and China began its own work after Chinese President Xi Jinping visited Nepal in 2019. As part of the complicated measurement, researchers placed signal receivers on the mountain and measured the amount of time it took signals to travel between the receiver and satellites to figure out the new height. Global positioning devices and ground-penetrating radar were also used. Nepal's lead surveyor Khimlal Gautam ended up with damaged toes due to frostbite he suffered while installing the measuring equipment.
A 2015 earthquake in Nepal helped inspire the re-measurement of Everest. The BBC notes that some geologists thought that quake could've shrunk the mountain's snow cap, while others note that Himalayan peaks can actually grow taller over time as shifting tectonic plates push them upward.
A 2015 earthquake in Nepal helped inspire the re-measurement of Everest. The BBC notes that some geologists thought that quake could've shrunk the mountain's snow cap, while others note that Himalayan peaks can actually grow taller over time as shifting tectonic plates push them upward.
Another meter? (Score:5, Funny)
Another meter? That's two more meters just this week.
We'll have our space elevator at this rate.
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Re: Another meter? (Score:3)
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Re: Another meter? (Score:2)
Not really a dupe (Score:2)
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This one is in metric units,
But still with peculiar American spelling, meter vs metre.
The US is slowly being dragged, kicking and screaming, into the 19th century, but they are damned well going to spell the units as they please.
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Why would the US use the French spelling? I mean, I know why the UK uses French spellings - but we left before all that nonsense.
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The previous article [slashdot.org] used wsj.com as their source, this one uses a non-paywalled source. Normally they update their articles to add non-paywalled sources but that seems to have failed today.
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Another meter? That's two more meters just this week.
We'll have our space elevator at this rate.
While this was intended as a joke, it is interesting to think about the consequences this would have. The whole earth would wobble from the gravity of a such mountain. I wonder for how long time the earth would last before collapsing. And imagine the earthquakes...
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That could be counterbalanced by a large mass at the antipode. Somewhere in the South Pacific. Right around where R'lyeh is located (or Gilligan's Island).
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continental drift (Score:2)
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BeauHD posted yet another dupe!!! (Score:2)
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But but but ... the other one didn't have details like those frostbit toes!
Earth's *Highest* Mountain. (Score:3)
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If your best argument involves defining a word to your liking, you don't have an actual argument.
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Yeah, I'm sure that factoid comes up a lot in trivia questions and google searches.
Out on the street though, everybody knows what's meant by "world's tallest mountain".
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Highest usually means much more to most people than tallest unless you start your ascend from the bottom of the ocean.
Sure Mauna Kea is taller...but it means much less than being higher to almost everyone.
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Neither is Mount Everest. Mount Chimborazo's peak is furthest from the center of the Earth.
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Mauna Kea cheats. It's partially supported by water.
What did they consider the top? (Score:2)
The snow or the rock?
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The article doesn't say but Wikipedia marks it as snow height [wikipedia.org].
What did they consider the *bottom*? (Score:3)
Mount Everest. (Score:2)
Forbidding, aloof, terrifying. The mountain with the biggest tits in the world.
at this rate we will hit 8900 in a couple of month (Score:2)
Not worth his toes (Score:2)
Seems a dupe. tldr but the last story said it was political, one team wanted rock height and the other was snow height. Perhaps one method penetrates the snow (11 feet I thought). At any rate, not a change in mountain height based on an earthquake it would seem. Not worth my toes.
Slow week on slashdot? (Score:2, Insightful)
It used to be only on weekends when EditorDavid posted stuff that had nothing to do with whatever of relevance. Now it's on a Tuesday.
Um.... China and Nepal say they have determined the "most accurate height of Everest that we have ever had,"
Yeah. They agreed the snow doesn't count. Wow. Imagine that.
The mountain height has not changed. Nothing has changed.
If you're short for articles maybe try finding news. Hint: Wired and CNET are now as lame as you are, so quoting their articles... not so much. Wh
Definition of mountain altitude (Score:2)
Point is that the height of a mountain is just not very well defined. Even sea level is difficult with all that mountain changing the local gravitational acceleration of the Earth.
No, it didn't (Score:2)
We just made a new measurement.
So what? (Score:1)
Earth shaking news, for sure. I'll keep this info in mind next time I climb Everest.
vs...what? (Score:3)
I've always wondered what, precisely, they're measuring these mountain heights against.
It's "above sea level" which is wonderfully anachronistic but hardly specific.
It used to be based on air pressure, which OF COURSE could vary significantly depending on high or low pressure zones that happened to be overhead.
Now they use satellites but the question remains: vs what?
Are they using orbits, which would logically be circular around Earths center of gravity? This would then really be treating earth as a reference SPHERE which it of course it isn't (it's an oblate spheroid)...thus 'inflating' the heights of equatorial mountains or deprecating antarctic mountains, depending on which earth-radius you're using as the reference value.
Or are they extrapolating what sea-level would be at that latitude which would likely be full of assumptions as sea levels every where vary wildly based on local temp, tide, etc. to variability far in excess of the supposed precision of this measurement (meters)...
So they're X meters above...what?
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Here is a short video that talks a bit about how sealevel works (the reference from which these mountain heights are measured):.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?... [youtube.com]
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Thank you, that's great!
China vs Nepal-invaded-by-China (Score:1)
This is just China and China pretending to dispute and resolve.
This is social engineering to con people into not remembering that China invaded Nepal and overthrew their independent government and society.
Free Nepal
What gives? (Score:2)